1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a failure prediction system for managing and monitoring multiple devices connected on a network, with a device management server, to predict a failure of the devices, a failure prediction program, a failure prediction method, a device, a printer and a device management server.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a device, such as a printer and a copying machine, itself has increasingly been able to notify its condition by providing an application execution environment for the device.
In such an environment, it has been possible to perform various maintenance services as a business by collecting information of failures and errors of each device to one location via a network.
For example, there is conceived a service in which, by collecting diagnosis results of a failure condition and a usage for each of a large number of printers connected to a network, such as the Internet and an intranet, and predicting a printer that is likely to fail based on the diagnosis results, suitable maintenance services are provided for the printer before a failure occurs or a warning is given to the effect that a failure is predicted for the printer.
However, the method of predicting a printer that is likely to fail based on diagnosis results related to a failure condition, a usage and the like of a lot of printers, however, has a problem that it is impossible to cope with a failure caused due to an unexpected factor and, therefore, accurate prediction is difficult to make.
The present invention has been made in consideration of this unsolved problem of the prior-art techniques, and its object is to provide a novel failure prediction system enabling accurate prediction of a failure of a device connected on a network, a failure prediction program, a failure prediction method, a device, a printer and a device management server.